Page:Letters of Life.djvu/107

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FIRST GRIEF AND FIRST JOURNEY.
95

of August 21st, 1856, prostrated this idol of the people. At the time of my first visit to Hartford, in October, 1805, its gnarled branches spread wide, though its head was not conspicuously lofty. The extension at the base was large and hollow, and, according to tradition, the cavity had been capable of containing thirteen persons. I should think, if the numeration was accurate, they must have been of the pigmy race. It was doubtless of great antiquity, and seemed then in as vigorous health as when, after the abdication of the fourth Stuart, and the accession of William and Mary, it opened its casket, and restored to the rejoicing colony its well-guarded treasure.

After a fortnight's stay I returned home with heightened happiness and overflowing gratitude. Renovated health and the rose-tint faintly reappearing on the cheek, delighted my doting parents, and uplifted their opinion of the wisdom of our good physician into a sort of homage due to a tutelary being.

Faithful Lucy, my attendant, had been made happy by the condescension extended to her, and the wonders she had seen. "I have been to London," said she, in her attempted narrations. Yes, London undoubtedly to her, who had never before been ten miles from her native place, but in the humble simplicity of household labor,


"Along the cool, sequestered vale of life,
Had kept the noiseless tenor of her way."